Variations on a Theme
by kalliopeia
Summary: A woman with thirty-six names learns to live with herself.


Mara feels it when the Trouble works- feels the tearing in her psyche as she hears the crashing of her future self falling to the floor. She watches them hold her, watches how Audrey (it's interesting, that the different phases of her life all have their own names) look at her with fear, loathing… fascination.

_Audrey isn't surprised_, Mara thinks.

_None of us are surprised_, a different version replies.

Mara's eyes widen. They're awake. Thirty-four versions of her future are awake and pulling at her, pulling her forward, towards them. They're still weak, much weaker than her- and none of them understand this, not like she does. They are, after all, children. None of them lived as her for longer than a year.

The boys are still cooing over Audrey, who looks shell-shocked at having her own body again. Some of the other parts of Mara's future groan in jealousy, a tinny noise within her mind. It's crowded.

The tearing Mara felt when Audrey got torn out must have woken them all up. She'd figured they were there all along- if Audrey was, why not all the rest? But no one had tried reaching her the way they'd reached Audrey. They hadn't brought Vince in to talk to Sarah or any of the crowd in to pull up Lucy. They hadn't cared to, and Mara had been glad. It was difficult enough fighting one down. She didn't want any more awake and fighting her.

Now she's facing a goddamn army.

_Not all of us, Mara. I'm on your side._ Mara traces the voice. Abigail. One of the early ones. Of course- the first few are all like her. Radical personality shifts don't happen overnight, after all, not even with the supernatural oppressor of the Barn. Not even with the other people pasted onto her like a mask. The first few were all attuned to the Troubles the same way she is.

She can feel the shifts inside her, the way she changed within the Barn but more frighteningly within herself. It was horrible, waking up to find that she'd grown up to be a beige-clad, perky, goody-two-shoes cop, but she remembers each degree of change she'd taken to get there.

Mara hates her future. Denies it, pushes it away. They all act like Mara and Audrey are different entities, not past and present. Audrey has to know it's a lie. Maybe the boys haven't figured it out yet… but they will. (Duke, at least; Nathan might be too far gone, too far into his heart and too attached to his rose glasses to accept it- other versions of her have loved other men like him before).

With one last haunted look at Mara, Audrey leaves. Mara smirks. Officer Parker is freaked out by her past, more freaked out by the fact that her past is sitting in a chair in the present.

Little does she know how much.

/

They get stronger, but Mara understands herself in a way they've never gotten the chance to, and she hangs on. She keeps them down, successfully, until her mouth moves without her permission.

"Tell me about your mother," Lucy Ripley says.

Duke stares at her with shock, dismay, and Mara fights Lucy back down and covers. He refuses (she doesn't care) and leaves. She takes the opportunity to push Lucy down, fight at her, weaken her- she knows now that she can't destroy her, can't destroy any of them- they are, after all, all parts of her- but she can weaken Lucy to the point that she won't be able to do anything like this again for the foreseeable future.

The effort weakens her, but she hides that too.

Duke comes back, eventually, and caves to Lucy's demands. The story is tragic, tragic enough that even Mara's wincing after a while, and she can feel Lucy stir with sorrow within her.

Lucy wants to ask why he never looked for help, but can't. Mara does. She tells herself that she just wants a firmer grasp on Duke's psyche, his weak points. She can hear some of her other pieces hissing at her for the untruth.

Okay, so lying to herself is more difficult now with so many selves. Mara finds herself annoyed by that.

Duke replies, quips, says he never wanted foster care.

Lucy sighs, barely there, like a shadow of a whisper.

Mara remembers Lucy's turmoil, trying to decide what to do for the small boy whose father she'd just put down. Researching Marlena Crocker and trying to figure out whether or not to make the call. She'd made it, and had been forced to leave before she found out whether she made the right choice. Mara can still feel the uncertainty, the fear of having someone else's fragile life in her hands. Mara had always relished that kind of power. Lucy had been afraid of the damage she could do with it.

Mara can still feel that. She starts to tell herself that it's just a residue, like a phantom pain, but the chorus of her future hiss again so she stops.

Mara gives Duke what he wants- has to, lest he suspect that she wasn't the one who issued the question. She saves Nathan's life. She doesn't want to- he's a point of contention with her.

Sister Catherine pipes up her outrage that Nathan had premarital relations with… them, but Mara irritably shuts her up. Some of the others have other concerns. They had not, after all, given permission for him to touch them like that. Mara understands. Mara hates what's been done to her body without her consent. All of it smarts at her, from the men (and women- thanks, Veronica) who've laid hands on her with a phantom's permission to the marks and scars put on her body while someone else was in charge of it.

Except, of course, that it wasn't someone else. Audrey is Mara. They're all Mara. Everyone has done things their futures or pasts would not approve of.

Mara groans aloud. Her situation is frustrating enough without the ongoing philosophical discussion as to how violated she's allowed to feel.

/

Mara's goading them. "Do you really think that I-"

And the next thing she knows, she's pulled down and someone else is talking.

"We're fighting her. We're doing what we can," Lexie Dewitt tells them. She's touching her body, running hands over breasts and sides and thighs. "Wow, I'm in charge of this thing! I'm not just sidelined inside my own head! Novel."

"Lexie," Dwight breathes incredulously.

"Indeed," Lexie says. "Hi, there, boys."

Mara tries to fight upward, but they're holding her down- not just Lexie. They teamed up. And this- being trapped inside her own subconscious while her body does things she doesn't want it to be doing- this has got to be wrong, even if everyone involved is technically her. At least when the Barn was doing it, she didn't have to be awake.

"Agh! She's trying to regain control, and we can't hold on much longer," Lexie says. "Listen. What you were doing with Audrey? Talking to her? Do that again. Sarah, Lucy, and I at least. And the names of the others. Lydia. Veronica. Susanne. Kelly. The Guard has research- look into it. She- she's coming back. I don't have long." Lexie looks at Duke and says, "Lucy says sorry. She did her best, she really-"

Mara yanks back control and the parts of herself holding her down fade. "Get out," Mara thunders. "Get OUT!"

They back off, knowing she can't be reasoned with, and she breathes slowly. She regains control.

Her first impulse is to figure out which of them did this and punish them, use every spare ounce of her power to weaken them, hurt them, make them realize once and for all what she is.

She doesn't. She knows what their next move is, so she focuses.

Sarah Vernon isn't expecting the vicious attack.

/

They're predictable little beasts. When they return, Vince Teagues is trailing them with a pathetically hopeful look. He's as bad as Nathan.

"Vince Teagues," Mara says slowly. "This is really your best trick? Hoping this old man can successfully woo Sarah out of me? It's not going to work."

It's not going to work because Sarah is weaker than a fly with the wings pulled off. Mara would know.

"Sarah," Vince says quietly. "Sarah, it's been so long. I've missed you so much. I regret everything, you know that. I'm so sorry."

"She's not coming," Mara taunts him. "She doesn't love you enough to come back for you."

Sarah's stirring, trying, straining, but Mara crushed her thoroughly.

"Sarah, I know there was another way. A way you could have stayed out of the Barn, raised your son… Why didn't you tell me?" Vince asks. "I would have done it. For Haven, for you."

"Interesting. You think you were Sarah's greatest love? 'Cause I've got her memories, and I've gotta tell you-"

"_Vince_," Sarah whispers weakly.

Mara frowns, pushes her down. It's rude, not to mention strange, to be interrupted by one's own mouth.

"Aww, she is trying," Mara mocks, switching tactics abruptly. "Poor thing. Can't quite get through."

"Sarah. I love you," Vince says.

"Really wanna make that commitment?" Mara asks. "She lives in my head, Vince. She knows you were married. You had a wife."

"It's okay," Sarah whispers. "It's okay, Vince. I asked you to let go." She looks over his shoulder. "Nathan, Duke. Glad to see you got back all right."

"Sarah," Vince replies. He rushes to her, grabs her hands. Mara yanks them away. Sarah puts them back.

"No," Mara hisses.

"She tried to crush me so I couldn't speak with you," Sarah whispers, resting her forehead against Vince's shoulder. Vince is crying, unabashedly. "I can't stay. I still can't stay. But I needed this time."

"You should have killed me. Ended this."

"I was going to," Sarah replies. "You said… you always said… you didn't want to see it coming. You didn't want the anticipation."

Vince pulls back a little, stares at her. "What?"

"Dave saw me with the gun," Sarah whispers. "He didn't understand, and even if he did… Tell him I'm sorry."

"I will," Vince promises. He runs a shaky hand through her hair.

Mara jerks back at the feel of his meaty fingers touching her. "Stop!" she orders. Her voice trembles and she curses herself, silently (Sister Catherine admonishes her for it, but Mara ignores it- too many of her going on already).

Vince pulls back, concern in his eyes. "Sarah?"

"Mara," Sarah says. "She hates being touched. Vince, you have to know. I am Mara… _was_ Mara. We're all the same person."

"No," Vince says, immediately. "No, I know you. You're nothing like her."

"It had been nearly five hundred years. I changed," Sarah whispers. "But I used to be… I used to be… You shouldn't love me, Vince."

"Sarah," Vince whimpers. "Sarah, how much time do we have?"

"Not much. But I'll come back, if I can," Sarah promises. "I never wanted to leave you."

Mara fights for control. "Get away from-"

"Vince, I need you to hold on to me. And use the information to reach the others," Sarah asks. Mara frowns. This is getting really annoying.

"I will. I will. I won't let her win," Vince says.

Sarah's weakening. Abigail and some of the others are helping tear her down.

"Vince," she says once more, and then she fades.

Mara pulls back up, furious. "How do you not see how pitiful you are? You. Nathan. All the others. There are others, you know. Other men. One woman. Almost all Troubled, many pulled in by my immunity. _My_ immunity. Those bitches didn't earn it. There are so many of you. Like embarrassing flings past for me. But they all need me so desperately. I'm glad you're the only two still alive."

Some of her keens at that- Veronica is desperate for Maria, Rosaline wants Marcus, Fern remembers all the things she never said to Gerald, even Abigail misses John.

And Mara feels all of it. But she'll never admit it.

"You tried to stop her from talking to me," Vince says angrily. "Tried to weaken her so she couldn't."

Yes, Mara had done exactly that. It hadn't worked. She'd been desperate enough for a little more time that she'd plowed right through Mara's abuse. It scares Mara. It scares Mara, and every part of her knows it.

For the first time, Mara is truly afraid she's going to lose. Afraid she's going to be overwhelmed by what the Barn did to her, by the changes she unknowingly accepted, by the people she became.

Susanne Vilwock takes over just long enough to smile.

/

Within a few weeks, almost every version of her sees the light again. Sister Catherine lectures Duke about his sexual habits, Veronica entertains Duke with tales of her sexual habits, Anna teaches Dwight how to properly spin a lasso, Sarah finally lectures Nathan properly about the politeness of screwing a woman without mentioning being from the future and about to go back, Lexie does over-enthusiastic yoga (Mara's back hurts for a week).

Then something strange starts happening.

She tries to hide it, at first, unsure of what was happening. It isn't difficult. They're having their own crisis up there, as usual.

But when Vince comes down to talk to Sarah, the switch isn't as severe as it once was. No longer does Sarah Vernon fight to get to the surface while Mara struggles to hold her down. It becomes more liquid.

Dave is the first to notice. "Sarah."

"Yes," she replies.

"Sarah, it's not quite you, is it? Not all you. Not like we knew you," Dave says. "You're becoming a little bit of her too."

"I've always been a little bit of her," Sarah replies.

"More, now, though. And she's a little bit of you."

They're melding. The memories are connecting together, becoming a little more linear. When Mara thinks about Sarah, walking away from Vince and away from her son and into the Barn, she feels like Sarah does. When she thinks about what all of them lost, she feels sorrow. When she thinks about what they gained, she feels joy.

When she thinks about how they helped those in need, she feels pride.

Mara still feels interest, fascination, at the horrible things that destroy people in this town. But it's a mixed bag now.

/

Eventually she admits it. Not on purpose. She was exhausted, letting anyone out who wanted out, and this results in a long string of apologies. Lucy apologizes to Duke for bringing his mother to Haven and to Nathan for not taking action that would have saved his mother. Lucy seamlessly melds into Gwendolyn, who apologizes for burning a host of Guard files- files that could have helped them. Gwendolyn becomes Abigail, who slowly apologizes to a woman who's not even in the room or even alive anymore, and then:

"I'm sorry for what I said about your daughter."

It's a beat before Mara realizes that those words are really hers, aimed at Dwight. Not her sentiment- at least not the sentiment of who she was before the Barn- but she does mean it.

Dwight stares at her for a long moment. "Mara. That's… really you?"

She hesitates, but the sadness in his eyes breaks the dam. "Yes. I shouldn't have said that. And I shouldn't… I shouldn't have…"

Dwight pats her arm gingerly. "Thanks, Mara."

They start letting her loose, bringing her on Troubles without Taser belts. At first, she's tempted to cause Troubles, but she can't anymore. She solves them instead. It sates her fascination without angering her conscience, without bringing back the memories of the terrible ways she's seen friends die.

/

One day, Audrey vanishes and appears in the mix. Mara knows because she wakes up loving Nathan.

Duke and Nathan are freaked out by the change, terrified of losing Audrey again, but Mara embraces the both of them with warmth.

"It's still me."

"You're Mara."

"I've always been Mara."

Over time, they grow to accept her. It's the first time anyone's really accepted all of her. Even William rejected the gentle parts of her.

Her name is Audrey.

Her name is Lexie and Lucy and Sarah and thirty-one others. She's loved countless people. She's solved nearly as problems as she's mocked. She's saved people and doomed them. She is evil and good. She is a savior and a villain. She is complicated, but a little less fractured every day.

Mara embraces every bit of herself. Turns out, Mara- _all_ of Mara- was exactly what Haven needed the whole time.


End file.
